CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE - WHAT IS ALREADY BEING DONE?

Statistics New Zealand

108. Statistics New Zealand administers a number of surveys that produce information about ICT usage, training, and the ICT industry:
     • Household Economic Survey (HES) - The HES collects expenditure on items, including expenditure on computers, Internet charges, and Internet installation and modification charges. From this you can get average weekly household expenditure on Internet charges, the percent of households reporting expenditure on Internet charges, aggregate annual household expenditure on Internet charges etc. In addition these could also be analysed by variables such the income group of household, household type, age group of the householder etc. The HES also collects information on household amenities, for the example the number of households that report having a home computer. This can be analysed by variables such as tenure of the household, income group (decile, quintile etc), household type etc.

     • HES Internet supplement - The 2000/01 HES has an Internet Supplement questionnaire. The main purpose of the Internet supplement is to collect information on Internet purchase, including those that have already reported in the Expenditure questionnaire. All goods and services ordered on the WWW or by email are to be included. Each household member aged fifteen years and over fills in an Internet questionnaire (even if they have not ordered anything over the Internet). The questionnaire asks if the respondent ordered a good or service over the Internet in the last twelve months (yes, no). For each good or services purchased, the questionnaire collects: the type of good or service ordered, the total cost in $NZ, was the payment was made on-line (yes, no), and was it a NZ web site (yes, no). The questionnaire is more for exploratory purposes. It has not yet been decided how this will be coded, how the data will be stored (probably in a separate dataset), or if the information will be published. These factors depend greatly on how the respondents fill out the questionnaire and the general quality of the data received. We are only expecting a small proportion of the sampled households will have ordered anything over the Internet, so there will be a number of nil responses.

     • Time use survey - The time use survey provides data on the amount of time users spend on the Internet, and also information about access to computers and the Internet which is slightly more up to date than the HES. These tables can also be categorised by some other variables.

     • Census - The 1996 Census (and earlier years) collected information on telephone access that has been widely analysed. The 2001 Census (to be held on March 6 2001) has a question on connectivity for households. This asks whether the household has access to telephone, facsimile, Internet. This will provide a set of data for further analysis of the differences between communities with these connections. Data from the Census should be available from March 2002.

     • Longitudinal Survey of Income Dynamics (LSID) - It is planned to collect ownership of computers as part of the household amenities questions in the LSID. Eventually this could be analysed by household income, education etc. and changes tracked over time. But is fairly limited.

     • Education and Training Survey (ETS) - The ETS, a supplement to the September 1996 Household Labour Force Survey, provided a small amount of information on participation in training.

     • Disability Survey - Statistics New Zealand carried out a survey of people with disabilities after the 1996 census, and will do so again after the 2001 Census. This contains some information on the use of IT to alleviate disabilities and may be able to be used to get further information on whether disabled people have access to a computer or the internet in their homes, but does not ask about their ability to use these.

     • Trade and industry data - Statistics New Zealand collect and publish information on exports and imports of ICT products, and on the information technology industry in New Zealand.

109. Statistics New Zealand provides a report annually to the Ministry for Economic Development summarising information available on information technology in New Zealand. They are also currently developing a survey of business practices with MED and the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology. Final agreement with the external agencies has not yet been settled, but assuming the survey goes ahead, the results are intended to be available at the end of May 2001. One of the elements of the survey is investigating the use of information technology by New Zealand enterprises. The main issues to be considered are:
     • The intensity in which enterprises use their information technology;
     • Reasons why enterprises utilise information technology;
     • Sales made through email and Internet sites;
     • Orders made by enterprises through email and the Internet;
     • Motivations for involvement in the Internet; and
     • Barriers to involvement in e-commerce.

110. Statistics New Zealand has a project underway to develop a prototype electronic data collection system for a survey of businesses. An initial survey of current use of electronic data collection in official surveys has been carried out. Respondents in a number of surveys use email. However the number of respondents sending responses by email is a very low proportion of total responses for most surveys. In general a greater number of responses are received by fax than email, although compared to postal return of questionnaires, this too is a very small proportion of responses.

111. There is a significant, and growing, amount of communication with respondents in economic surveys by email. Email reminders are highly effective in eliciting responses, and are significantly cheaper than phone follow-up. Statistics New Zealand is in the process of developing formal guidelines for respondents wanting to supply survey returns by email. Some respondents are comfortable with sending data by email, and in some cases have asked to do so. These responses are accepted.

112. The internet is being used to obtain prices for commodities that are used in the calculation of the CPI, e.g. pharmaceuticals, rather than from printed brochures as was done in the past.

113. The aim of the project is to develop a working internet data collection model to be used in conjunction with the normal survey process for a selected business survey. A part of this project involves developing protocols and guidelines for electronic data collection, to ensure security of data. These will be integrated with forms on line and SEE work.

114. Statistics New Zealand's biggest survey, the Population Census, is not using any electronic data collection for 2001. However Statistics New Zealand intends to investigate systems for the 2006 Census so that people can provide their information electronically. Currently all other household surveys are interviewer administered and so direct electronic data collection is not appropriate. However, computer assisted interviewing is being developed for these surveys. The first SNZ computer assisted personal interviewing will be for the Household Savings Survey, which will be tested in October this year.

115. The Statistics New Zealand website is intended to make a wide range of information available to users. In particular the schools corner and the page that provide links to information relevant to Maori are targeted to encourage the use of the web to access information. Currently the direction for dissemination is to provide information in easily accessible electronic forms, with paper available as needed. The website is continually improved for accessibility. Statistics New Zealand has developed a set of graphical guidelines for public agencies that are intended to give best practice information on presenting information clearly in graphs. These refer to presentation requirements for clear website presentation, and will be improved as experience in the area develops.

116. One of the strategic goals of Statistics New Zealand is to ensure that information is relevant to users and to policy needs. This covers two elements -providing background information to understand the nature of the digital divide, and secondly, providing information in a way that it can be used by those who have digital access and those who do not. With the lower cost of providing information on the web, this means encouraging use of the website and making the data accessible and relevant. Statistics New Zealand's contacts with schools and libraries, through newsletters and other means, aim to encourage the use of the information provided through electronic media.

117. Statistics New Zealand also gives away old computers to low decile schools from time to time.

Department of Work & Income

118. The Department is currently undertaking an eServices Project, with the aim of being able to deliver some services through use of the Internet. This Project is made of six separate initiatives:
     • Knowledge Management: To deliver quality information to staff, to capture the wealth of valuable business information possessed by staff and to ensure the integrity of information provided to clients and citizens.
     • e-Aware Organisation: To train staff as effective and enthusiastic users of eServices, and enable them to assist and train clients in the use of this technology to better access the Department's services.
     • Eligibility Wizard: To facilitate and encourage self determination of a client's eligibility for income support and other support needs.
     • Interactive Income Support: To deliver easily accessible information to individuals, organisations and communities regarding the Department's services, and to deliver to individuals details of their own entitlement, as the first step towards developing the facility for clients to update their own records.
     • Interactive Employment: To provide job seekers and employers with an easy to access and use environment that will maximise the opportunities for accurate matching.
     • Interactive Student Services: To provide students with access to information and ability to apply on line for loans and allowances.

119. Once a comprehensive eService is available, an important role of Front Office and Call (Contact) Centre staff will be, as part of their daily interaction with clients, to take the opportunity to deliver one to one training to clients on how they can access these services.

120. The Department provides a wide range of employment assistance programmes to job seekers. None of the existing programmes focus specifically on provision of ICT training. However, some job seekers are provided with office skills training through TOP.
121. The Department has recently donated surplus PCs to lower decile schools, community organisations and through Ministry of Economic Development initiatives (i.e. Project Rorohiko).

State Services Commission

122. The State Services Commission has the responsibility for progressing the Government's e-government policy. The Government has committed $16 million of operational funding and $1 million of capital over the next four years for the Commission's work on e-government.

123. An e-government unit has been established within the Commission, to co-ordinate the e-government work programme. To ensure that the best advice is put forward to the Minister of State Services, an Advisory Board comprising both public and private sector representatives has also been established.

124. A number of discrete projects are under way. These projects fall broadly into three major project types:
     • Developing basic infrastructure needed for information age government - includes the legal environment for e-government; common data policies and standards; common information systems policies and standards; metadata framework; Secure Electronic Environment (SEE) for government agencies.
     • Connecting government and connecting government with citizens and businesses - includes the New Zealand Government Online (NZGO) portal; closing the digital divide; improving citizen engagement; government forms online; online government registries.
     • Improving government efficiency - includes electronic billing and payments; electronic procurement; CFIS net; core spatial data/systems; government IT infrastructure; office management and support for small agencies.

Ministry of Research, Science & Technology

125. During 1998/99, MoRST led the Foresight Project, the main objective of which was to answer the question "what do we really want RS&T to achieve?" As a result, Vote Research, Science and Technology has been reorganised around four high-level goals (Innovation, Economic, Environmental, Social). Although these goals do not specify ICT explicitly, the research, science and technology investment made under them does provide some insights into these issues.

Skills

126. The "Supporting Promising Individuals" output class in Vote RS&T ($10.7 million) increases the skills of pre and postdoctoral researchers, teachers and Maori researchers and technologists. In general these are already a technological skilled population.

127. A recent evaluation of the Science, Mathematics and Technology Teachers Fellowships revealed participant's gained a sustained commitment and enthusiasm for the value of their subject area which spilled over into the wider school community.

Attitudes to RS&T

128. RS&T invests $3m million annually towards promoting an innovation culture. The underlying rationale is that people who value research and innovation are more likely to develop and adopt new products, practices and processes. If business leaders, parents and children have a greater appreciation of the value that S&T can contribute to our prosperity and well being then we might see:
     • Greater investment in research and development by the private sector
     • A more scientifically literate population; and
     • A more reasoned debate about the risks from new technologies.

129. The Royal Society Website includes examples of the projects funded (www.rsnz.govt.nz). These include projects that promote computer science to students and teachers.

130. Research has been commissioned to determine current values and attitudes to Science and Technology in New Zealand. In summary, this research shows that many people are convinced that science and technology is important to New Zealand, but are less convinced that Science and Technology makes a difference to them in their everyday life, and many are unsure specifically what contribution science and technology makes. When it comes to science and technology related careers, by far the strongest association parents make is with jobs in computers.

Content

131. The wider RS&T investment includes research undertaken to evaluate the impact of IT on communities. The Health Research Council, for example, has funded a research project evaluating the forms of computer communication between health promotion advisers.

Other work

132. The newly established Science and Innovation Council (SIAC) will contribute directly to the Prime Minister ideas about how to improve our innovation system. SIAC has been charged with:
     • increasing the public status and recognition for scientists and science;
     • promoting a long-term, strategic direction for research, science and technology;
     • building private-sector commitment to new science and technology policy directions; and
     • enabling co-ordination of Government policies and community activities at the highest level.

133. SIAC are still at the stage of scoping their work programme. However, they have quickly identified a number of areas that they consider worthy of special attention, one of which is the digital divide .

134. Within Vote RS&T, Technology New Zealand is designed to increase the ability of enterprises to adopt new technologies and apply technological innovation for business growth ($24 million). A major evaluation of its operations is currently underway.

135. Work is also underway on developing a strategy for increasing the awareness of the roles and quality of debate on RS&T and innovation issues.

Foundation of Research, Science & Technology

136. The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology is a purchase agent for research supported under Vote RS&T. FoRST funds research in a number of areas, defined by Strategic Portfolio Outlines (SPOs). The most relevant SPO for the issue of the digital divide issue is the Information and Communication Industries SPO. This SPO includes amongst its strategic objectives "socio-economic impacts of ICT".

137. Also relevant are the New Wealth Creating Enterprises, Peoples of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Maori Development and Advancement SPOs.

Ministry of Youth Affairs

138. A major policy initiative for the Ministry at present is the Youth Development Strategy. The Strategy will focus on what needs to be done to support the raising of healthy, productive citizens. A common theme is ensuring that young people have positive connections to a range of groups and institutions, such as family, community, peers, school, and work. The impact of growing up in an information society could be something that fits into this strategy.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs

139. ICT is a development that has not, but needs to be, promoted to Pacific peoples as offering the potential to promote their culture and artistic talents as well as providing commercial opportunities. As well, a lot of education needs to be undertaken to promote the value of ICT in Pacific communities as an instrument to assist in Closing the Gaps.

140. There is potential for disparity in ICT capacity to be addressed in connection with the Capacity Building initiative the Ministry is currently undertaking with Pacific communities. This initiative is aimed at addressing the various poor socio-economic outcomes facing Pacific communities. Disparity in ICT capacity needs to be part of this work. A number of groups have also identified it as an area requiring attention.

141. Innovative initiatives have also been discussed and undertaken at community level, including:
     • Community fundraising projects where payment is with a computer and software.
     • Church-based internet design classes.
     • Content design classes involving life stories and histories.